- Joined
- Jan 1, 2022
@booklover, it wasn't included in the book.
around the time of publication, the author did a promotional event at a large bookstore. she described her interviews with several former personnel of johns hopkins who were responsible for mrs. lacks' care. they described the substandard care that she received, specifically, the beliefs that because black women were "prone" to drug addiction and hysteria, their response to pain was often "demonstrative" and "overly dramatic", and therefor they should not receive more medication than was absolutely necessary to keep them "docile".
the author stated that she and her publisher chose not to include this information because, due to the ongoing legal battles involving the release of medical records by johns hopkins, she was unable to verify all of the details from the interviews, and she wanted to protect the identities of the retired personnel from potential litigation. she stated that it was her belief that the information was accurate, as she was able to verify employment records, there were multiple individuals independently asserting the same information, and johns hopkins was incredibly resistant to the release of any records regarding medication administration for mrs. lacks.
i've searched everywhere that i can of, but i cannot find the recording of the bookstore event. i even listed to the npr interviews again, hoping that it might have been mentioned. it wasn't, but i did notice that the original interview from 2010 was edited from 37 minutes to 30 minutes when it was aired again in 2013, just as the lacks family was mounting a legal challenge to the release of research regarding dna sequencing of the hela cells. even in the edited version, the author states, "They [black patients] were often not given the same kind of pain management that white patients would have gotten and they died more often of diseases."
around the time of publication, the author did a promotional event at a large bookstore. she described her interviews with several former personnel of johns hopkins who were responsible for mrs. lacks' care. they described the substandard care that she received, specifically, the beliefs that because black women were "prone" to drug addiction and hysteria, their response to pain was often "demonstrative" and "overly dramatic", and therefor they should not receive more medication than was absolutely necessary to keep them "docile".
the author stated that she and her publisher chose not to include this information because, due to the ongoing legal battles involving the release of medical records by johns hopkins, she was unable to verify all of the details from the interviews, and she wanted to protect the identities of the retired personnel from potential litigation. she stated that it was her belief that the information was accurate, as she was able to verify employment records, there were multiple individuals independently asserting the same information, and johns hopkins was incredibly resistant to the release of any records regarding medication administration for mrs. lacks.
i've searched everywhere that i can of, but i cannot find the recording of the bookstore event. i even listed to the npr interviews again, hoping that it might have been mentioned. it wasn't, but i did notice that the original interview from 2010 was edited from 37 minutes to 30 minutes when it was aired again in 2013, just as the lacks family was mounting a legal challenge to the release of research regarding dna sequencing of the hela cells. even in the edited version, the author states, "They [black patients] were often not given the same kind of pain management that white patients would have gotten and they died more often of diseases."
